The Pequod's signal was at last responded to by the stranger's
setting her own; which proved the ship to be the Jeroboam
of Nantucket. Squaring her yards, she bore down,
ranged abeam under the Pequod's lee, and lowered a boat;
it soon drew nigh; but, as the side-ladder was being rigged
by Starbuck's order to accommodate the visiting captain,
the stranger in question waved his hand from his boat's stern
in token of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary.
It turned out that the Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board,
and that Mayhew, her captain, was fearful of infecting
the Pequod's company. For, though himself and the boat's crew
remained untainted, and though his ship was half a rifle-shot off,
and an incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing between;
yet conscientiously adhering to the timid quarantine of the land,
he peremptorily refused to come into direct contact with the Pequod.
But this did by no means prevent all communications.
Preserving an interval of some few yards between itself and
the ship, the Jeroboam's boat by the occasional use of its oars
contrived to keep parallel to the Pequod, as she heavily forged
through the sea (for by this time it blew very fresh), with her
main-topsail aback; though, indeed, at times by the sudden onset
of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed some way ahead;
but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings again.
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